


Nama

by Liara_90



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Drabble, Gen, Japan, One Shot, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Writing Exercise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 07:56:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12502576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/pseuds/Liara_90
Summary: A sketch of the life of Yatsuhashi Daichi, re-imagined in a modern setting.





	Nama

**Author's Note:**

> A slightly-modified version of this story was originally posted on my Tumblr on March 20, 2017, and can be found here: http://pvoberstein.tumblr.com/post/158649542803/modern-au-yatsuhashi-brainstorm-junk-post-test

Isolation had always been a part of Yatsuhashi’s life. Part of that was geographic: he’d spent almost his entire life in what could only be called a _village_ , a picturesque if remote little community tucked in the Ryukyu Islands. It was a whole-day undertaking just to get to Okinawa, closer to two to get to the ‘mainland’. He hadn’t seen Tokyo until he was almost ten.

Much more of the isolation was emotional. Even before puberty had struck he’d been a giant amongst his peers, his adolescent growth spurts had only exacerbated that to what he considered monstrous differences. He had at least a foot-and-a-half on almost everyone he met, and his muscles had grown with him, making him seem more like an ogre from an old folktale (or so he sometimes thought). Nobody disliked him, at least not openly, but friendship had been hard to find in those years.

For a while, he’d retreated to the library, or to his father’s fishing vessels. He loved them both. He loved books, for in addition his strength, Yatsuhashi had been gifted a mind of rare agility, and there were few things he enjoyed more than devouring dense tomes. He could sit at a table, cramming his body into an under-sized chair, and read without interruption for the better part of a day. He taught himself enough English to read the newspapers and magazines that came in, and would make the occasional pilgrimage to the town’s one bookstore, stocking up on subjects too unpopular for his local library, which he returned to all the same.

Nobody ever bothered him.

If there was anything that could challenge his love for the library, though, it was his father’s boats. His family hadn’t always been fishermen, he’d been told: once, they’d been noble samurai, or ambitious merchants, or daring pirates. The story changed with the mood his father was in, but Yatsuhashi never minded. Fishing was enough for him. Most of the time it was simply maintaining the aquaculture installations, little different from farming, but every-so-often they’d make an excursion into bluer waters, in search of prize fish destined for the markets of Tsukiji and then the sushi bars of Tokyo. He liked those days the most.

But it was still lonely. Even among in the fishing crews he stood apart, separated by powerful muscles that could haul catches and equipment and cargo with ease. He was quiet and stoic, never complaining about the waves or the rain, enduring with a dignity that would never be compromised by complaint. But something in him _had_ changed, caused him to reach out into the ether for individuals and connections. He was forever grateful that his household had a connection to the global Internet - Yatsuhashi would not realize just how primitive the dial-up connection had been until many years later - and an understanding of English more than sufficient to converse with the denizens of the World Wide Web. He’d found the forums, and chat rooms, the electronic bulletin boards of people just looking to _talk_.

Some part of Yatsuhashi’s mind wished he could skip the part obligatory in every introduction where it was said that he was Japanese. Not that he was ashamed of his nationality, nothing of the sort, simply that American millennials seemed to have a strong, pre-existing image as to what he was supposed to be like. Suffice it to say that Yatsuhashi did not fit it. He’d never really gotten into anime, or cutting-edge electronics, and he was as skilled a martial artist as the average Midwesterner was a footballer. He’d chatted with enough online to get tired of answering if his grandparents had been at Pearl Harbor, or if you could really buy schoolgirl panties from vending machines.

He might eve have given up were it not for a young woman going by the username CoffeeQueen. It had been in a chat room he still felt nervous entering, the kind of thing he _always_ remembered to clear from Internet Explorer’s memory. It was a forum for exploring questions of gender and sexuality, with an openness Yatsuhashi had never before seen. Japan was less puritanical than much of 'the West’ when it came to homosexuality, but the taboo was there all the same, and Yatsuhashi had always been good at keeping his mind focused on more acceptable subjects. Or _had_ been, anyways…

They’d teased out details about each other over the course of weeks and months. She was American. Californian, to be precise, but it seemed that she spent half the year in Italy or France or whatever the flavor-of-the-month was. She was creative, engaging, and _opinionated_. He liked that. And she had asked him about his life, and he had answered with unusual unreservedness. He told her about Japan, or at least, the Ryukyus which he knew. What is what like struggling to find clothes that fit you (she always seemed to find these complaints humorous, for reasons he struggled to pin down). He tried teaching her some rudimentary Japanese, but the limitations of ASCII on the early Web kept that to a primer on honorifics. And he’d told her about fish. About how they lived and were caught, how they migrated, what threats they faced. Coco knew a surprising amount about environmental issues, but she was always eager to hear more from him. He liked that, too.

It was Coco’s fault that he ended up in America. His marks had been too high for his teachers not to press him to apply to the top universities in the nation, even if he had no real desire to leave home. He applied to universities he’d never visited, in Naha and Tokyo and Kyoto, and was assured he’d be accepted to all of them. Few would have guessed, from his warrior’s build and a skin stained by saltwater, but all that time in boats and libraries had given him a scholar’s mind. He wanted to study ecology and biology, and there was no reason not to believe that he’d excel at both.

Coco had talked him into one bit of diversification. A university in Los Angeles with an excellent program, she assured him. She badgered him into taking the SAT, proof-read his application essays, confessed that his understanding of the archaic rules of English grammar was probably better than hers. And when he emailed her, late on a Friday night, that he’d received an acceptance letter, the phone in the kitchen was ringing seconds later.

Never mind that it was four in the morning in L.A. Or that he couldn’t quite remember giving her his phone number.

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing special, but I figured I'd share it. Hopefully someone enjoys it. If you have ideas for other characters & settings you'd think would make a nice Modern AU sketch, feel free to leave a note.


End file.
